


Freedom's Song

by LavellanLove



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, MerMay, Modern Thedas, mermaid au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 00:30:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16843516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LavellanLove/pseuds/LavellanLove
Summary: AU in which the escaped slaves of Elvhenan fled to the seas as the titans overtook the land and the dragons ruled the skies. They took fins and gills to live free of the Evanuris and the humans who followed in their wake, becoming the Dalish. As the war threatened to overtake Arlathan, Solas sealed off the city from the rest of Thedas in a desperate attempt to save it. Though in many ways he succeeded, the Veil made their once beloved crowned city a prison, those who ventured beyond its borders losing their prized immortality. Thus, as the ages passed, they relied on humans and the younger races to bring them artifacts of the world beyond.





	Freedom's Song

i.

The first time he sees her, she is somehow devoid, lying listless and lethargic on the floor of a containment tube barely wide enough for her to extend her tail. Her dark curls and bright fins billow along with the pumping of the tank’s filtration system, iridescent scales somewhere between the color of coral and flame depending on how they caught the light. Quite a feat, making the greenish tinge of the flickering fluorescent bulbs above look anything but sickly. 

“Thank you for coming on such short notice, Solas,” Abelas says. “She has been like this since she was collected from the edge of the Dalish reef. Doesn’t eat, won’t sleep, just lies there staring off into the distance.”

Reflexively, he presses his palm to the thick acrylic. “She is beautiful,” he remarks. Catching himself, he quickly adds, “Her…scales, I mean. She does not appear unhealthy; rather, unhappy.”

“The only happiness that matters is Ghilan’nain’s. She must be made ready for exhibition. Dalish are expensive, after all. The humans claim to have lost an entire ship bringing this one in.”

Ghilan’nain is far from sympathetic towards the creatures they bring in from beyond the Veil. Her sentinels dip their staves in the water, administering an electric shock to attempt to motivate her to move. He knows the mer do not feel the same way real elves do, but the way she braces herself against the floor, gritting her teeth as though trying to mask pain, it is impossible not to imagine.

“Stop!” he yells, impulsively extinguishing their magic with his own. Only then does she look at him, her pale green eyes penetrating. 

He secures his regulator and slips into the tank. She barely moves as he descends. As gently as he can, he draws blood from her fluke, scraping film from her scales to examine back in the lab. He presses a stethoscope between her shoulder blades, listening to her heartbeat: steady, slow, and strong.

Content with his assessment, he moves to push off from the floor of the tank when with reflexes faster than he expects, slender fingers grab his wrist. His eyes widen with surprise behind his goggles as she gestures insistently at her own neck.

Abelas taps at the glass, curious whether he needs a guard to intervene.

He raises a hand, signalling for Abelas to wait. Pointing a flashlight where she indicates, he catches sight of a jagged, crescent-shaped wound just above. She has been trying to tell him: she’s been robbed of her voice.

ii.

Weeks pass before he sees her again. She has been moved out into an exhibit: a large clamshell for a bed, shelves of dead, painted coral, walls enchanted to ripple like the sea. They’ve clasped a choker of golden coins around her healing throat and thrown a chest of other treasures into the tank. They believe mer enjoy things that shimmer, after all.

Her eyes meet his from across the room, and in spite of himself he smiles, offering her a wave. He knows it is not possible, but it’s as if she remembers, swimming to the edge of the tank and pressing her palm to the glass.

He points at his throat, and she touches hers in turn.

Before he can think what words he wishes to speak, wide eyed children rush to the tank and stare back in, delighted to see her up close. The bright lights of their camera phones flash in her eyes, and she retreats into the forest of plastic kelp.

iii.

He returns at closing time when the aquarium is quiet. Without the din of the tourists, the ‘aquatic’ tones playing over the speakers are barely loud enough to cover the heavy sounds of industrial pumps and artificial sunlight. But there is something almost painfully beautiful beneath it, tugging him forward as if by the heart until he presses his ear to the tank.

He sees colors in his mind, swirling until they begin to form shapes, but the song is too faint. Wanting her to come closer, he knocks on the glass. She stops abruptly, looking up in surprise.

“I am sorry,” he says, knowing full well she cannot understand. “I did not mean to disturb you. I am only glad to know your voice is returning.”

Her smile makes something leap in his chest. “It is exquisite. In all the Fade, I have not heard another quite like it. I wish I had not interrupted so I could hear it once more.”

Just like that, her smile fades. She shakes her head. “My song is not for you,” she says firmly, pronunciation clear as the water.

Terrified, he backs away, wiping his face and hurrying out of the room. They are not real, he reminds himself. And yet, she understood.

iv.

He comes back to watch her sing; only to watch, since she wished for him not to listen. He sits in the back, studying her movements, trying not to anthropomorphize her. Had she actually told him not to listen, or was it only a dream? Hard, telling the difference. How blurred the lines are upon waking.

She spots him, of course, and points to her ears with a frown. He smiles coyly and shakes his head, pointing at the earplugs in his own. Her chest heaves in a laugh, and she swims up with a graceful arc, sitting on the highest rock of the enclosure and begins to weave a melody.

The patrons of the aquarium, usually rowdy and talkative, seem almost transfixed. They have stopped in their tracks, cameras and maps fall to the floor, and they stand, unblinking, the entire time. They cannot understand a word, but somehow the song is haunting, sad, leaves them full of longing for a place none of them had ever been nor seen.

They seem empty when she stops, some sad, some almost angry. A woman cries. A sentinel tells a particularly agitated man that the next show is the following morning. When he wants to wait there, they have to escort him out.

Solas had at first thought she had deemed him unworthy of her gift of song. Now, he takes her words as a warning.

Still, he walks up, removing the plugs from his ears, and asks her the question burning in his mind.

“May I know your name?” he asks almost sheepishly.

She considers it for a moment, then swims closer to whisper her response.

“Avira.”

v.

Months pass, and he does his best to heed Avira’s wishes, even as her growing fame makes it increasingly difficult to avoid. All throughout Arlathan, she is painted across giant posters advertising her act. Everywhere he goes, he sees the merchandise, hears people speaking of the mermaid with the voice sweeter than lyrium’s song.

He knows Ghilan’nain is pleased by the way they praise her for her ‘creation’. Their coin lines her pockets and their prayers bolster her power. Elgar’nan grows jealous. This pleases her even more.

At her invitation, Solas goes to watch along with the other gods. They have moved her to the sonallium, now staged like a shipwreck.

“The crowd grows every day,” the white-haired goddess boasts.

In the front row, Solas cannot help but notice the same agitated man from the first time he saw her sing: wearing the same clothes, doing nothing but staring at the stage, waiting to hear her sing again.

In the sonallium, her song is not just heard, but seen and felt. She recounts the glories of the elvhen empire over its foes, familiar tales that leave the audience swelling with pride. But then the song departs from the familiar melody. Instead of following the heroes as they sealed off the city and saved the People, it follows those outside Arlathan’s borders.

Gold clad armies force them back with spear and spell off of the cliffs and into the sea. Most die on the rocks. Many drown trying to muster the magic to escape the waves. Those who survive pooled their magic to fashion themselves gills to breathe and tails to swim. Only a few survive the gruesome transformation.

Millennia of hardship unfold before them: the mer are hunted by creatures of the deep, caught in nets and taken as trophies or pets by humans, harpooned by qunari dreadnaughts who sought to reign in their territory, destroying their reefs for broader channels to sail.

She shows them the stories passed down in the backwater grottos like the one in which she was raised, the burn of thin netting on their skin and dry air in their lungs as they scream for their loved ones to save themselves.

She makes them feel how the stale water of their tiny enclosures leaves one wanting, how it stings, causing once-bright scales growing dull and shedding in splotches.

She has them hear every sound with the sensitivity her ears do through the water, every tap on the glass feeling like it threatened to shatter their eardrums, the lights of the cameras flashing leaving them nearly blind, the way electrified staves send pain rippling through their bones.

The richness of it, even without sound, makes Solas entire being ache. To feel with such depth and clarity and pain…how can she not be real? And if she is…

The song ends, and every person in the crowd of thousands feels utterly alone.

Ghilan’nain prepares to bask in the peoples’ praise and uproarious applause, but instead feels nothing.

Avira looks up and smiles.

vi.

Ghilan’nain cancels the act. Protests ensue. Every day, at the break of dawn, angry elves and humans alike stand at the gates of the aquarium, picketing in protest. Security has to be doubled and doubled again until there is a veritable army outside the gates. Every night, people try to break in, muttering mindlessly on about needing to return the mer to the sea. Even as they threaten to overwhelm the guards, Ghilan’nain refuses to let the mermaid sing.

As Solas traces Avira’s actions back, he realizes she has played them all. She is no mermaid, but a siren. The sailors who captured her likely slit her throat to keep her from singing them to their deaths. But feigning sickness to have her throat healed, building a crowd steadily until they brought her to the sonallium: each action she has taken or not taken was designed to dismantle Ghilan’nain’s handiwork.

He realizes all this and smiles. He is still a god of rebellion after all.

The protesters finally break through the sentinel ranks, tearing the locks off the tanks and freeing every mer in sight. All except the one they sought, no doubt kept in a dank basement, under dim fluorescent lights in a tank too small for her to extend her tail.

Solas walks smoothly through the crowd, untroubled by the chaos, making a line straight for Avira.

When he finds her, she bound and gagged, a weight anchoring her to the bottom of the tank. But unlike the first time, she is defiant, proud, and still somehow happy to see him.

He lifts her from the tank, removes the gag, and wraps her in a sopping towel to wet her gills before carrying her from the aquarium. His eyes flash blue as anyone dares to try to stop him, petrifying them in stone.

He does not stop until they reach the shore.

vii.

The last time he sees her, her people are being lowered into the sea by ancient elves once more, this second time far gentler than the first. The mer sing songs of triumph, tears of reunion adding to the salt of the waves.

Solas walks Avira into the water with care, trying to decide what to say.

“I believe I owe you an apology,” he says.

“For helping my people escape?” she asks quizzically, a playful bit of levity behind her eyes.

“I have been so ignorant for so long,” he admits, though the shame of the confession makes his face burn. “Perhaps willingly so. But there is so much I feel I must learn. I owe your people that much at least.”

She shakes her head forgivingly, with grace he does not deserve, spinning her fingers around her open palm until a shimmering conch has formed then offering it to him.

“Ask, and I will answer. Listen, and you will hear.”

He presses the conch to his ear, the hum he recalled from that first day warm and rich in his chest.

“Your song…” he says, promptly pulling the conch away from his ear and offering to return it to her. “You told me not to listen.”

She guided his hands back towards his chest, the conch at the hollow spot below his ribs. “Keep it. This one is meant for you.”

Then with a flash of her tail, she is gone.


End file.
